“It's a lie, there are no tunnels under Al Shifa hospital.” That's what an Arab citizen with Israeli nationality says just meters from the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem. After making a proclamation against Israel's bombings in Gaza and the deaths of Palestinian civilians, he prefers not to give his name. “They would arrest me because I am Arab,” he says, “this is a dictatorship.” He does not defend the Hamas attack at all. “And what do you think?” he asks the journalist.
From where we are we can see the sentry boxes from which young soldiers carefully watch the Damascus Gate with their rifles always ready. Three boys dressed completely in black, with sports clothing, are intercepted. They must show their documents. They make one enter the guardhouse with his hands up. He comes out again with the same posture. Finally, they are allowed to enter the Old City.
The Israeli army insists that there are Hamas tunnels under the largest health complex in the strip. Until yesterday there was no indication, but last night a military statement stated that "Hamas' tunnel infrastructure was exposed inside the hospital." The note, accompanied by images, specified the discovery of “an operational tunnel and a vehicle containing a large amount of weapons.”
Shortly before, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant insisted that the operation was still “ongoing.” Yesterday Gallant visited the headquarters of the 36th Division, the unit that has taken control of Al Shifa, in southern Israel. “There are important findings there,” the minister said in a statement, highlighting that the operation “is being carried out precisely,” in the face of international criticism over the siege and subsequent military occupation of the hospital.
Gallant also reported that his forces already control “operationally the western sector of Gaza City” and that the offensive on the strip now enters a new stage. “The next phase has begun: the forces act precisely and decisively,” said the minister.
At the same time, a military spokesman reported that troops found the body of one of the Hamas hostages in a “structure adjacent” to Al Shifa hospital. This is Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old woman kidnapped on October 7 during the Islamist organization's attack in southern Israel. The military claims that Weiss was “murdered by terrorists.”
The hospital is located precisely in the western sector of the capital of the strip and yesterday the soldiers again carried out searches in the large health complex, as they had already done on Wednesday, when they announced the discovery of some weapons in the magnetic resonance center, uniforms and other belongings attributed to Hamas fighters. In addition to medical personnel and patients, thousands of people who have lost their homes due to bombings that have already killed at least 11,500 Palestinians and left almost 30,000 injured and more than 3,000 missing are taking refuge in Al Shifa.
Hamas health authorities denounce that Israel destroyed several rooms in the hospital and that, during the searches, they prohibited entrances and exits from the center. In addition, an AFP journalist reported that Israeli soldiers fired at the buildings of the medical complex.
Earlier, Israeli forces had confirmed that they already control the Gaza port, maintaining that it was also used by Hamas. “Under the guise of a civilian port, Hamas used the area to train and carry out terrorist attacks, while also using civilian and police ships from the Gaza port,” a statement said. Also yesterday, during the early hours of the morning, Israeli aircraft destroyed the house of the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, a refugee in Qatar.
The occupation of the Al Shifa hospital and the deaths of civilians from Israeli bombs in Gaza continued to attract criticism from abroad yesterday. There is no longer a day in which the US Government, Israel's main ally, does not issue some call for attention to Beniamin Netanyahu's Executive. “Israel needs to guarantee the protection of civilians as it attempts to expand military operations in Gaza,” Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, told a group of journalists yesterday, according to the Reuters agency. On Wednesday, the US – along with the United Kingdom and Russia – abstained in the UN Security Council vote, leading to the approval of a declaration that asks Israel to establish pauses and humanitarian corridors in the strip.
However, the spokesman for the US National Security Council, John Kirby, said again yesterday that the intelligence information available to the White House regarding the fact that Hamas had its operations command in the hospital is “reliable.” Al Shifa.
With the same ambiguity as the US, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lowered the tone of his criticism. If on Tuesday he had demanded “maximum restraint” from Israel, which earned him a harsh reply from Netanyahu, yesterday Trudeau stressed “the importance of taking all possible measures to protect civilians and minimize victims,” but making clear his support for the Israeli government.
On the other hand, the possibility remains latent that the conflict could spread to northern Israel or end up breaking out in the West Bank. Yesterday Hizbullah launched eight attacks from Lebanon, while at an entrance checkpoint to the Jerusalem area from the occupied territories three Palestinians were killed after attacking Israeli soldiers, one of whom died.
And while Israel claims that it already controls the west side of Gaza City, 3,500 kilometers away, at the Spanish Torrejón air base, near Madrid, some of its inhabitants said that “Gaza no longer exists.” This is how many of the 139 Hispano-Palestinians evacuated this week from the strip expressed themselves to the journalists who were waiting for them when they got off the plane that took them to Spain, saving them from the lottery of death in which the Gazans are installed.
